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Assessment of Soil Erosion Using USLE

Technique: A Case Study of Mysore District,
Karnataka, India
Article November 2015

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University of Mysore
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Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS

ISSN: 2230-7990(online), ISSN: 2321-421X(print)
Volume 6, Issue 3
www.stmjournals.com

Assessment of Soil Erosion Using USLE Technique: A

Case Study of Mysore District, Karnataka, India
B. Mahalingam1*, M. M. Malik2, M. Vinay1
1

Center for Geoinformatics, University of Mysore, Manasagangothri, Mysore, India

Department of Geography, University of Mysore, Manasagangothri, Mysore, India

Abstract
The present study has been conducted to assess the soil erosion in Mysore district in
Karnataka, India. The most widely used Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) method has
been adopted for the analysis. The USLE method performs based on the five parameters such
as, rainfall factor, soil factor, length and slope factor and conservation practice factor. Each
necessary numerical data have been obtained from the concerned organization and satellite
images have been downloaded from appropriate websites. The spatial data have been
manipulated and analyzed using GIS while the numerical data have been analyzed using MSExcel. The result of study represents that, most of the area is covered by very light erosion
followed by very severe erosion.
Keywords: universal soil loss equation (USLE), land use, land cover, rainfall, GIS

*Author for Correspondence E-mail: mahabose@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
Soil is one of the natural resource which has
been termed as a limited and irreplaceable
resource by the International Soil Science
Society [1]. Over the years, the unplanned
practice of cultivation [2], introduction of
large-scale irrigation canals and deforestation
[3] accelerated soil degradation, while Oldmen
(1988) indicated that, the causative factors of
soil degradation can be grouped as,
deforestation, over-exploitation of vegetation
cover for human uses, over-grazing of pasture
lands, over-intensive use of agriculture land
and (bio)-industrial waste.
Soil erosion is a widespread problem in
agriculture in the developing countries [4]
especially in India, where most of the soil has
been eroded by sheet and rill erosion. This has
a serious effect on agricultural production [5].
Although soil erosion has been recognized as a
hazard of significant concern, yet the number
of studies on this problem is very limited in a
country like India [6].
The present study area Mysoreis one of
the agriculture-based districts in the state of
Karnataka, India, where the topography is
rugged due to the erosion of hills to plain
region [7]. The study of soil erosion in Mysore

district would bring out valuable outcomes for

the future management purpose.
Several models have been developed to predict
soil erosion during the past 50 years, such as
water erosion prediction and planning
(WEPP), watershed model (WATSED), and
USLE. Among these USLE is one of the most
widely used models for predicting soil loss [8].
The USLE was established by Wischmeier and
Smith in 1978; it is applied in many areas of
the world [9]. Primarily, the USLE equation
was produced for selected cropping and
management systems, but it is also applicable
to nonagricultural conditions such as
construction sites [10, 11]. USLE takes into
account several factors such as rainfall, soil
erodibility, slope, land cover and erosion
control practice for soil erosion prediction
[12]. The result of USLE represents the
degradation of soils in amount of tones per
hectare in a year [13].
The development of GIS and remote sensing
(RS) data plays a major role in the analysis of
soil erosion. These techniques have become
valuable tools specially when assessing
erosion at larger scales due to the amount of
data needed and the greater area coverage [14].
Many case studies such as soil loss prediction

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Soil Erosion Using USLE Technique

Mahalingam et al.

by Singh (1981) [15]; soil loss by water

erosion by Singh and Phadke (2006) [1];
prediction of soil erosion potential and
proposal land cover solutions by Ha (2011)
[9]; soil erosion risk by Ozcan et al. (2008)
[10] has proved that integration of RS and GIS
techniques with USLE could be effectively
used for predicting soil loss. Therefore, the
present study has adopted USLE model for
calculation of soil loss in Mysore district,
India using GIS and RS techniques.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

The general USLE is as follows:
A=R x K x LS x C x P
Where, A=the computed spatial average soil
loss and temporal average soil loss per unit
area (ton ha1 yr1), R=rainfall erosivity factor
(MJ mm ha1h1yr1), K=soil erodibility factor
(Mg h MJ1 mm1), LS=slope length and
steepness factor, C=cover management factor,
and P=the conservation practice factor [16].
Rainfall Erosivity Factor (R)
Rainfall erosivity is the basic and important
factor in the assessment of soil erosion in the
USLE model [17]. The soil loss is closely
related to rainfall partly through the detaching
power of raindrop striking the soil surface and
partly through the contribution of rain to
runoff. There are several methods to find out
the rainfall erosivity, among them, Roose
suggested following formula to find out the
rainfall erosivity factor (R) using mean
monthly rainfall data [18]. This method is the
only method which can be adopted for the

places like Mysore where short-time intensity

data is not available [19, 20].
R = 0.5 * P *1.73
Where, P is mean annual precipitation [21].
For the present study, totally 20 rain gauge
stations data have been collected for 30 years,
and mean value of 30 years has been
calculated. Then calculated mean value have
been used as P in the formula to find out the R
factor of each stations. The result of each
station has been entered in inverse distance
weighted interpolation to predict the spatial
variation of rainfall erosivity in the study area.
The result showed that the intensity of rainfall
erosivity differ from 568.86 to 973.11
(Figure 1).
Soil Erosivity Factor (K)
Soil erodibility factor represents the
vulnerability of soil or surface material to
erosion, transportability of the sediment, and
the amount and rate of runoff given a
particular rainfall input, as measured under
standard condition . The base map of soil has
been obtained from the published material of
Department of Geology, University of Mysore,
India and the appropriate K factor values for
classified soils have been collected from the
previous research and appropriate books
(Figure 2). The study area contains four main
characteristic of soilssandy loam, red loam,
red sandy loam and black and mixed loam.
The result showed that, the K factor varied
from 0.30 to 0.38.

Fig. 1: Rainfall Erosivity Factor.

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Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS

Volume 6, Issue 3
ISSN: 2230-7990(online), ISSN: 2321-421X(print)

Fig. 2: Soil Erosivity Factor.

Fig. 3: Topographic Factor.

Topographic Factor (LS)
There are many relationships available for the
estimation of topographic factor (LS); among
these, the one that is best suited for integration
with the GIS is the theoretical relationship
based on unit stream power theory (Tirkey et
al., 2013) [22]. In the present study, the
methods suggested by Moore and Burch
(1986), have been followed to find out the LS
factor using digital elevation model, which can
be expressed as,

LS = (Flow Accumulation * Cell Size

/22.13)0.4 * (sin /0.0896)1.3
Where, flow accumulation is the number of
cells contributing to a given cell; cell size is
the pixels side; is the slope angle in degrees.
The shuttle radar topography mission elevation
data has been used to create the digital
elevation model of the study area. Then DEM
has been used to find out the slope and
accumulation. Finally the flow accumulation
and slope raster were calculated to find out the
LS factor (Figure 3).

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Soil Erosion Using USLE Technique

Mahalingam et al.

Land Cover Factor (C)

The land cover (C) factor is used to determine
the relative effectiveness of soil and crop
management systems in terms of preventing
soil loss [23]. It is mainly related to the
vegetations cover percentage and defined as
the ratio of soil loss from specific crops to the
equivalent loss from tilled, bare test-plots [24].
The C factor values vary between 0 and 1
based on the types of land covers [25, 26].
Larger C factor values indicate that the
corresponding land cover type results in more
soil erosion than the other land cover
types [27].

The land use and land cover classification of

present study area have been obtained through
the supervised classification using downloaded
Landsat 7 satellite imagery. Then the accuracy
assessment of classification result has been
calculated using error matrix and kappa, from
which the accuracy of classification was found
as 96.5%. The classification result showed six
land use and land cover in the study area
agricultural land, built-up land, forest,
plantation, wastelands and water bodies
(Figure 4). The value of C factor for each land
uses have been collected from the previous
studies, which differs from 0 to 0.99.

Fig. 4: Land Cover Factor.

Fig. 5: Practice Factor.

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Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS

Volume 6, Issue 3
ISSN: 2230-7990(online), ISSN: 2321-421X(print)

Supporting Conservation Practice

Calculation of Soil Erosion
After the calculation of each parameter
Factor (P)
Supporting conservation practice (P) factor
required to examine the soil erosion, the
reflects the effects of practices that will reduce
overlay method has been used in GIS to find
the amount and rate of water runoff and thus
out average annual soil loss. The result of
reduce the amount of erosion. The most
overlay analysis has been classified into five
important of supporting practices are contour
categoriesvery slight, the area which has
tillage, strip-cropping on the contour, and
less than 5 tones/hectare/year of erosion;
terrace systems [26]. The P value ranges from
slight, the area which has the erosion between
0 to 1, where 0 represents very good manmade
510 tones/hectare/year; moderate, the area
erosion resistance facility and 1 represents no
which has the erosion between 1015
manmade erosion resistance facility [14]. If
tones/hectare/year; severe erosion, the area
the practice data is not available, the P factor
which has the erosion between 1520
can be removed/avoided from the soil loss
tones/hectare/year; and very severe, the area
estimation by setting the P equal to 1 [28, 29].
which has the erosion more than 20
Due to the unavailability of practice data for
tones/hectare/year (Figure 6).
the present study area, the P factor has been
set as 1 (Figure 5).
Table 1: Categorization of Average Annual Soil Loss.
Soil Erosion (t/h/year)

Area (Km2)

Area (%)

<5

4374.52

70.05

Very slight

510

229.23

3.67

Slight

1015

270.61

4.33

Moderate

1520

263.72

4.22

Severe

> 20

1106.53

17.72

Very severe

S.No

Category

Fig. 6: Average Annual Loss.

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Soil Erosion Using USLE Technique

The result of average annual soil loss

represents that, totally 4374.52 Km2 area
comes under very slight category, 229.23 Km2
area comes in slight category, 270.61 Km2
area comes in moderate category, 263.72 Km2
area comes in severe category and 1106.53
Km2 area comes in very severe category
(Table: 1). The results also depicted that,
around 70% of study area have been covered
by very slight erosion and around 18% of area
covered by very severe erosion while rest of
the categories are having less than 5% area of
total study area.

Mahalingam et al.

5.

6.

7.

CONCLUSION
The present study was conducted to analyze
soil erosion of Mysore district, India. The
study showed that, vast area was covered by
very slight erosion (70.05%), followed by very
severe erosion (17.72%) while areas of slight,
moderate and severe soil erosion were less in
spatial extension. The map created for the soil
erosion represents the spatial variation of
erosion over the study area; from which it is
clear that, the high elevated and high slope
areas in the Mysore district has high soil
erosion while the plane area has less soil
erosion. This result can be used to perform the
necessary steps to control soil erosion. Based
on the analysis and results in the present study,
it is suggest that, the use of GIS and RS
technique with field observation can reduce
the time of research period and bring out the
accuracy of result in soil erosion studies.

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Cite this Article

Mahalingam B, Malik MM, Vinay M.
Assessment of Soil Erosion Using
USLE Technique: A Case Study of
Mysore District, Karnataka, India.
Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS.
2015; 6(3):

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